Harvesting equipment, such as agricultural combines, often use chopper assemblies, such as integral chopper assemblies or hood mounted chopper assemblies or systems, to transport material away from the threshing system and to also treat the material, e.g., by further cutting the material, as it is being transported away from the threshing system. A rotary chopper element or portion of the integral chopper system may be operated at or near 3,000 revolutions per minute (RPM) to transport the material from the threshing system to a spreading system. When operated at 3,000 RPM, the material is transported with the shortest mean length of cut to permit modern minimum tillage applications. In a less common embodiment, the integral chopper system may be operated at a speed of about 800 RPM to more gently transport the material from the threshing system to a spreading system and with considerably less chopping activity. When operated at this lower speed, the material can be transported to the spreading system with the longest length and least amount of damage.
Integral chopper systems typically have a residue chopper assembly that has a rotary chopper component or element disposed laterally within a housing extending generally horizontally across the flow path of the crop residue through the housing, as well as a counter knife assembly extending generally parallel to and spaced from the rotary chopper element. The counter knife assembly may include chopper grate assembly spaced below and extending generally parallel to the rotary chopper element and a knife mounting assembly positioned generally beneath the chopper grate assembly.
Often, the counter knife assembly can have an adjustment mechanism that is operable to vary the spacing between a grate portion of the chopper grate assembly and the knife mounting assembly, as well as the degree of projection of the blade elements of the knife mounting assembly through the slots of the grate portion. The adjustment mechanism can be operated to move the knife mounting assembly between a fully engaged or inserted position with the blade elements of the knife mounting assembly extending through the slots towards the rotary chopper element and a fully retracted position in which the blade elements are fully withdrawn or retracted from the slots. In addition, the adjustment mechanism can move the blade elements to various positions between a fully engaged position and a fully retracted position.
When the knife mounting assembly is in an engaged position, either fully or partially, the crop residue can be chopped into smaller pieces by the cooperative actions of the knife blades or elements of the knife mounting assembly and the knife blades or paddles on the rotating rotary chopper element as the crop residue is moved and propelled rearward. The knife mounting assembly is usually positioned into an engaged position, either fully or partially, when the rotary chopper element is operated at or near 3,000 RPM and is usually positioned in a fully retracted position when the rotary chopper element is operated at 800 RPM to avoid excessive power requirements for the combine.
To avoid breakage of knives due to striking foreign objects ingested during harvesting, counter knife elements may be configured to deflect or break-away from their respective operating positions to a non-working position. However, conventionally, such configurations have required manual re-setting of the knife elements, which is undesirable.
In response, U.S. Pat. No. 9,137,949, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes, discloses an apparatus for re-setting counter knife elements to their operating position after striking a foreign object. While the apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 9,137,949 provides numerous advantages over conventional manual reset systems, it is desirable for further improvements and/or enhancements to be made to counter knife reset systems in order to reduce their overall complexity while maintaining the desired functionality.
Accordingly, a chopper assembly for a harvester having an improved automatic blade reset mechanism would be welcomed in the technology.